Yew-topped SG-style Guitar * Finished Pics!

[Daz39]

Wonder what the life expectancy of Middle Ages Bowyers was!

[Si600]

Interesting point. I would have expected that as they would have done everything by knife and not router the chips would be bigger and less likely to be digested, also any sanding would be done with either stones or handfuls of sand which would retain the dust.

Someone must have done a study on it by now!

[BreadBin]

1 hour ago, Frank Blank said:

Just reading up on the poisonicity of yew on wiki, I had no idea!

You have to be really careful foraging fungi from yew, proper cleaning is essential 👍

[pete.young]

Thats why it mostly grows in churchyards. Consecrated ground was one of the few places off-limits to grazing animals in the middle ages.

[Earbrass]

"The very beadsmen learn to bend their bows
Of double-fatal yew against thy state."

Shakespeare's Richard II (3.2.120)

 

[Daz39]

13 hours ago, Si600 said:

Interesting point. I would have expected that as they would have done everything by knife and not router the chips would be bigger and less likely to be digested, also any sanding would be done with either stones or handfuls of sand which would retain the dust.

Someone must have done a study on it by now!

Yeah - it'll have been a PhD for some student of medieval history or sumfink. It was certainly less risky than Blacksmith.

/tangent

[Paul S]

It is surprising the number of plants grown in our gardens that are pretty toxic.  Our native Foxglove for one - controlled dosage has been used to treat heart problems for donkeys years but all parts could be toxic if you aren't careful - get a lungful of the dust-like seed and you could have a heart attack.  Increasingly common in garden centres is Oleander which is seriously poisonous.  

[Andyjr1515]

To my fellow builders, particularly the ones just starting out on this crazy journey:  

If you don't already use hand planes and you are in lockdown, then one of the best things you could possibly do with the time is to watch a few videos on YouTube of how to set one up and adjust and use a hand plane and look at @Christine 's superlative guide, pinned at the beginning of Build Diaries, of how to sharpen the blades.

And I say that as one who, until my late 50's, had only ever used my handed down Stanley plane the way my father had and, no doubt his father before him - to smooth out the lumps and bumps in poorly home-plastered walls.

And that was because the possibility of actually cutting wood with them - even soft woods like pine - was, quite simply, fanciful  

And now, for me, planing a piece of wood ranks as one of the most pleasing and satisfying parts of the whole building process.

So what was I planing this time round?

Well - having found a piece of leftover purpleheart 6mm splice, it was time to assemble the neck blank.  Before I did that, I wanted to make sure I could maintain a flat surface that the fretboard would eventually glue to, so I put the two mahogany halves together, lined them up and just skimmed the combined top full length with the plane to square it up.

Then glued, assembled and clamped it all to within an inch of its life and I have my 3-part blank:

Next jobs on the neck blank will be:

- Routing the trussrod slot

- Thickessing to final width

- Cutting the plan and side profiles on the band-saw, ready for the bottom wings to be glued on (after, of course, checking the sizes, re-checking, checking the checks, walking away and then coming back to check again )

 

Stay safe and thanks, as always, for watching.

Edited March 31, 2020 by Andyjr1515

[scrumpymike]

I just LOVE a good serial!  Can't wait for the next episode 😊

[Andyjr1515]

4 hours ago, scrumpymike said:

I just LOVE a good serial!  Can't wait for the next episode 😊

I also love a good serial, but it's been a beggar getting any in the any of the supermarkets. The shelves have been empty now for weeks!

[Andyjr1515]

It didn't take terribly long to cut but - because the neck incorporates the neck angle which means you need to know exactly where the body is going to join - it took an age to draw, calculate, check, recheck and check again!

But the side profile of the neck blank is now cut:

 

And, hang it, let's have the first mock-up

 

 

[Owen]

I have often wondered why Yew was not used more in Lutherie as is intersting to look at. Now I know. The guy who works on my Double Bass made fireplace surrounds out of Yew and very attractive the were.

[BassTool]

23 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

It didn't take terribly long to cut but - because the neck incorporates the neck angle which means you need to know exactly where the body is going to join - it took an age to draw, calculate, check, recheck and check again!

But the side profile of the neck blank is now cut:

 

And, hang it, let's have the first mock-up

 

 

Now then....

 

Do I spot the early signs of a volute?

 

He who shall remain nameless will be well chuffed, because apparently he loves...

 

..etc...etc... 😂

Edited April 2, 2020 by BassTool

[Si600]

I think we should all make voluteless instruments from now on, just to put HWSRN off his morning toast and marmelade

[Andyjr1515]

57 minutes ago, BassTool said:

Now then....

Do I spot the early signs of a volute?

He who shall remain nameless will be well chuffed, because apparently he loves...

 

 

I daredn't do anything WITHOUT a volute.  Said nameless lives close enough to here to arrange for a mob with burning torches to come round for a visit! 

 

Lots of squaring up, etc, today.  This is clearly essential because the neck squareness will affect the squareness of the top, which will, in turn, affect the fit of the back wings.

Again, I find a hand plane as good as anything to take teeny amounts off the main faces to ensure they are completely square to each other:

 

Once that was done, I needed to pop a 0.5mm extra depth in the trussrod slot.  Then I was able to cut my notch in the neck blank for the top to slot into:

Yes, John, there IS a volute.  So tell the mob to stand down - again!  And this time, make sure they know the difference between standing down and burning down!  MrsAndyjr1515 still hasn't forgiven them...

So basically, the top of the notched face (incorporating the neck angle) will sit flush with the two rear wings:

And then the joined yew top will lie on top of that, leaving the top face flush with the top of the neck.

And, talking of the yew top, I also squared up the gluing joints of that - and it's glued and clamped as I type

And that means that the main components are getting close to assembly 

[Maude]

Yew can never have too many clamps. 😉😁

[scrumpymike]

Could have used ewe to get a more woolly sound... 🤐

[Frank Blank]

57 minutes ago, scrumpymike said:

Could have used ewe to get a more woolly sound... 🤐

But that would be shear madness, I’ve mutton left to say on the matter.

[SpondonBassed]

3 hours ago, BassTool said:

Do I spot the early signs of a volute?

 

He who shall remain nameless will be well chuffed, because apparently he loves...

 

3 hours ago, Si600 said:

I think we should all make voluteless instruments from now on, just to put HWSRN off his morning toast and marmelade

 

2 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

I daredn't do anything WITHOUT a volute.  Said nameless lives close enough to here to arrange for a mob with burning torches to come round for a visit!

 

Scandalous!  (Who are we talking about again?)

 

 

This is interesting from Acoustic Masters:

 

Quote

All early Martin guitars had jointed headstocks, with the headstock attached by a complex joint that is a modified form of ‘bridle joint’. In this joint the end of the neck is carved into a square point or wedge and the headstock has a matching socket. In addition, the back of the neck has a finger of wood, carved into the dart shape, which meets with the back surface of the headstock. This is such a tricky piece of joinery that Martin abandoned it in the 1920’s, but they continued to carve a dart volute on the back of many of their necks as a sort of tribute to the earlier necks. Since then other makers have copied the dart volute whenever they want to add some 'vintage' style to an instrument.

 

[Andyjr1515]

And early mockup number 2:

[Andyjr1515]

There are tools that don't get used very often but when they do, boy are they useful!

Take the Stanley No.80 Scraper Plane, for example.  I think this was around £15 from ebay a few years ago:


My task was to remove the bookmatch band-saw dints, tearout and chatter. 
 I didn't want to use a powered sander because of the potential harmful dust, ditto with hand sanding (and it would take a full isolation period of time to do it!), hand-scraping better but hurts my arthritic hands and some of those dints are quite deep; normal planes a no-go because of digging in an tearout.  

But the No 80 is absolutely perfect.  Decent surface removal but no tearout at all.


Once it was almost there, I wiped over with a damp cloth to spot the dints that still showed.  Great way of seeing the sort of colour this is going to be, too

Can't wait to see what those grain lines are going to do once I start carving the chamfers

[SpondonBassed]

Yew beauty!

[Maude]

That is an amazing piece of wood. 

Is it going to be dyed a colour or staying au naturel? 

[Andyjr1515]

1 hour ago, Maude said:

That is an amazing piece of wood. 

Is it going to be dyed a colour or staying au naturel? 

Natural. Gloss varnish

[Andyjr1515]

In all of my previous neck through builds, I have glued the rear wings to the neck, sorted the cable channels, etc, and then added the top.  This sort of thing:



The big disadvantage - particularly with the equipment (and skills!) I have, I find it very difficult to get the gluing area completely flat.  And it does need to be completely flat, otherwise the edges of the top are liable to end up with gaps.

So this time, I'm going to do it the other way round - glue the top to the neck blank and then add the prepared wings.

So first, I needed to add the demarcation stripe between the top and the back.  I'm using standard maple veneer:


Although it's only 0.6mm thick, it does show through well and is one of those things that always adds a bit of extra class to any build.  The back wings to through-neck joint will have the same feature.



Then, because I am weird and I use the top as my routing template for the back (although I may well not use a router on this one at all), I filed and sanded the tooling marks off the edge and brought it to its final shape and then glued and clamped it onto the neck:


Next job will be preparing the backs.

Stay safe and thanks for looking